Porter earns CHS swimming 'Iron Cat' award

CARLSBAD — Porter Kidd had a big weekend … and so did his Clovis High teammates.

The junior earned co-coach Vincent de Mayo’s “Iron Cat” award, having already qualified for all non-diving state events at this early stage of the season.

Kidd added the final two, the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke, on Saturday as the Wildcats cruised to victory in the Carlsbad Holiday Invite swimming meet.

CHS scored 504 points to 461 1/2 for runner-up Artesia in the seven-team competition. In additions to wins in the aforementioned events, Kidd also swam leadoff in helping the Cats win the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays in qualifying times, although both events had already been qualified.

The last winners of the award were James Skuse for the boys (2017-18) and Bella Zamora for the girls the following year.

“That’s actually the earliest anyone’s ever done it,” de Maio said. “It’s an indication of high quality, but also of a well-rounded swimmer.”

While the Cats earned seven state-qualifying times, the Lady Wildcats had just two and didn’t win a single event. Yet they posted a wider margin of victory than the boys with 453 points to 321 for second-place Carlsbad.

Other winners for the boys were senior Thomas Palla in the 200 individual medley (2:09.84), junior David Reeb in the 50 freestyle (24.88 seconds) and the 400 freestyle relay team (3:49.92), all state-qualifying marks. Palla also accomplished the feat while placing second to Kidd (51.51) in the 100 freestyle.

De Maio said that while it was nice to win the meet, the ultimate goal early in the campaign is improvement. With the previous week off from high school competition, de Maio said several of the team’s top performers were in a USA Swimming-sanctioned meet in Dallas.

“It was a good meet (for us),” he said of Saturday’s event. “The kids swam a little tired, but these (early-season) meets are used more as training meets.

“We’ve set goals that we want to accomplish. We’re starting to ramp up in our winter training.”

Meantime, the Lady Cats posted second-place finishes in five individual events and the 200 medley relays. State-qualifying times were posted by the 200 medley relay (2:05.32) and by freshmen Giuliana Fernandez in the 500 freestyle (5:52.52) and Claire Palla in the 50 freestyle (27.72).

Clovis went 2-3-4-5 in the 500 freestyle, and placed multiple teams in the top four in two of the three relay events.

Next up for the Cats and Lady Cats is a meet on Saturday at Rio Rancho Cleveland. After that, the teams won’t return to high school competition until Jan. 6-7 at Andrews, Texas.